LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Cat Chaser Joined: 23 Oct 2000 Posts: 556 Location: USA

I still use a 100mb zip drive and some discs to back up stuff... what I am wondering is, is there some other program that makes it easy to remember to do this now and then? I have tried some backup programs but no matter how I set them up, it seems that it doesnt go smooothly. Creates 2 of everything even tho I have overwrite checked.. or backs up EVERYthing instead of just my documents and databases...etc...
Ya think its just me?

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2000 8:21 pm Post subject:

It hard to say if it's you are the software without knowing which software you were using! Besides a 100MB Zip disk is a little small for backing up stuff. Not to mention it is just an overgrow floppy and therefore may have questionable life expectency!

Rover

"Donkey-punching, sport or pasttime?"

Big Dog Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 4410

If you have some money to spare. Dump the ZIP drive and just buy a CD Burner. Then put yourself on a regular schedule to perform the backups. Most CD's have a life expectance much greater than any TAPE or DISKETTE.

Fido@littlewhitedog.com

Big Dog Joined: 20 Oct 2000 Posts: 3689 Location: USA

if you get a cd-rw you can erase the cd, and then do a new backup and viola ! no duplicates

I would recommend using 2 cd-rw's and alternating them between backups. that way in a worst case scenario ( if you had a system failure DURING backup ) you would atleast still have the "other" copy and you could minimize data loss.

-Brain

Brain@littlewhitedog.com

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2000 12:20 pm Post subject:

There are many CD-RWs out there to choose from and I've had personal experience with HP, Sony, and Plextor. And I must say, Plextor's latest offering with its burn-proof technology is by far the best out! I've deliberately tried to make a burn fail and short of turning the power off I couldn't with the Plextor 10/12/32 model! Others have also tried and couldn't make the drive fail and therefore it has been adopted as our Corporate standard. I work for a Fortune500 company so that's no small potatoes!

Rover
"...She went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone,
when she bent over Rover took over and gave her a bone of her own!"

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2000 9:39 am Post subject:

Don't floppies only reliably store data for like a year or so? I don't know if it's a year or not, but I know it's certainly not forever. Anyone know about c.d.'s?

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2000 11:49 am Post subject:

It depends on the usage of the CD in question but I've seen studies that suggest a good quality CD-R burned once and put away can hold data for longer than we can to think about, something like 10,000 years!

Rover
"...She went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone,
when she bent over Rover took over and gave her a bone of her own!"

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2000 2:36 am Post subject:

Wow. I wasn't expecting THAT long. 10 years would be plenty. By then, c.d.'s will probaly be extinct anyway. Wink Smile

Big Dog Joined: 20 Oct 2000 Posts: 3689 Location: USA

the shelf life for cd-r's is supposed to be 3-5 years. If you buy high quality ones you can get that up to 10 years. If you want to pay around $10 a pop, you can get medical grade cd's which are quaranteed for 25 years

that said, if you burn one, put a label on it, and DO NOT write on it with a marker,then put it back in a hard case with nothing else inside that could cause the laquer to degrade, it can last a really long time.

due to manufacturing specs, if you buy decent cd-rw's you can expect to get 1.5-2x the life out of one if you only write to it a few times. Unfortunately you would have to keep it stored in the dark to prevent data corruption ( the disk integrity will remain fine, but the die will gradually fade when stored in a lighted/heated environment)

Plextor makes very good drives, so do Yamaha, Ricoh, and HP
If I needed to replace mine right now (I don't) it'd either be the SCSI Yamaha with 8 meg of cache, or an IDE plextor ( like the one Rover is talking about )

There is NO spoon !
-Brain